In perhaps his most famous quote, President George W. Bush’s defense secretary said, “There are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns—the ones we don’t know we don’t know.” Well, Americans know a bit more about Rumsfeld’s tenure as of Wednesday, when the National Security Archive released a trove of his internal memos obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request.
These documents don’t rise to the level of his unintentional poetry. (He’s more of a spoken-word poet than a writer.) Yet they certainly offer a window into his unique mind:
Rumsfeld criticizes the use of “Homeland” that makes him uncomfortable. I’m assuming he’s referring to Homeland Defense, which is weird since this memo is pre-9/11 pic.twitter.com/kAD69Rs5LX
— Paul Szoldra (@PaulSzoldra) January 24, 2018
12/17/01
— Paul Szoldra (@PaulSzoldra) January 24, 2018
Rumsfeld write a memo with the phrase “when the war on terrorism is over”
lol pic.twitter.com/sGkNVVfMYA
And it wouldn’t be the Bush administration without a pronunciation guide:
10/27/01
— Paul Szoldra (@PaulSzoldra) January 24, 2018
Rumsfeld passes along a memo telling everyone not to say it “MOOSLUM" pic.twitter.com/XZ5DowdHGs
You can search more than 900 pages of these memos here.